Time travellers: please don’t kill Hitler

A tongue-in-cheek article on the Guardian by Dean Burnett. He makes a good point; so many people have dreamed of going back in time to kill Hitler, that it could serve as definite proof that a time machine is impossible to make (or Hitler would be surrounded at all times by would-be assassins waiting in line to kill him).

In Dean’s own words:

“If you find yourself suddenly gaining access to a time machine, what’s the first thing you’d do? If you said “kill Adolf Hitler”, then congratulations; you’re a science-fiction character. Actually, the whole “access to a time machine” thing suggested that already, but the desire to kill Hitler clinches it. Any time-travelling sci-fi character (at least ones created by Western society) seems to want to kill Hitler, so much so that there’s atrope about how it’s impossible.

That attempting to kill Hitler has become such a common sci-fi plot device speaks volumes. What about Stalin? He was arguably worse, killing 20 million of his own people to fuel his ideology. But no, Stalin went about his business unmolested by time travellers, all of whom are busy targeting Hitler.”